Maeda Tetsu (was Upcoming DVD releases from Japan)

[Stephen Cremin]

Maeda Tetsu's HAPPY TAIL (Pakodate-jin) screened at the Yubari 
International Fantastic Film Festival in February this year and won the 
Grand Prix at the Kinder Film Festival (Tokyo) in August this year.  
Here's the catalogue synopsis:

"Hikaru is an ordinary high school girl in Hakodate, except she has a 
tail.  It appeared one morning and changed her life completely!  While 
Hikaru cancels her first date with her classmate, her best friend 
approaches him!  Poor girl!  Hikaru's sister and a would-be fashion 
designer puts on a handmade cake tale to take Hikaru out.  But gossip 
paper HAKODATE SCOOP's reporter takes a "tale shot" of them and panic 
Hikaru's family.  Then appears another tail-man!  Mr Furuta - a 
Hakodate City Office staff and a single father - is at a loss what to 
do with a tail.  Though his daughter innocently amuses herself with his 
tail, he worries if she tells her nursery school teacher and Furuta's 
love-to-be about it.  By and by tale-panic involves all over 
Hakodate..."

Here's the official press release:
http://www.ytv.co.jp/cinema/pakodatejin/english/release1.html

I don't think SWING MAN (or "sWinG maN") is a horror film but I might 
be wrong.  Here's what I guess is the official website:
http://www.msec.ne.jp/swingman/

Osaka-born Maeda worked as assistant director for Sai Yoichi, George 
Matsuoka, Sugawara Hiroshi and others before debuting in 1998 with the 
third episode of omnibus KAWAII HITO, a project supervised by Somai 
Shinji.  In addition to SWING MAN in 2000, he also directed GLOW: 
BOKURA WA KOKO NI starring Matsuda Miyuki,

Stephen




On Wednesday, October 9, 2002, at 11:42 PM, Michael E Kerpan Jr wrote:

>
> Some interesting and, hitherto, hard to find material seems to be 
> coming out
> in the next couple of months. Unfortunately, the likelihood of English
> subtitles does not appear high.
>
> Releases include Imamura's "Buta to gunkan" (Pigs and Battleships), 
> Suzuki's
> "Kenka elegy", Somai's "Ohikkoshi", and what I am guessing are some 
> 1960s
> "Sun Tribe" films.
>
> (gleaned from CD Japan).
>
> Also, some questions on recent releases.
>
> I see that Aoi Miyazaki has appeared in two films directed by Tetsuo 
> Maeda:
> "Swing Man" and "Pakodate-jin".  Other than the fact that the first of 
> these
> is horror-esque and the second is (seemingly) aimed at children, I've 
> found
> very little information online on these.  Has anyone seen these (or at 
> least
> seen reviews of them)?
>
> MEK
> Boston
>
>